


Five Times Baze Malbus Lost Faith (and One Time He Found it Again)

by BonitaBreezy



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Baze basically gives zero shits about anything but Chirrut, But also, Canon Disabled Character, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, During Canon, KIND OF I GUESS, M/M, Pre-Canon, and losing faith, because I Must, but also there's some fluff in there, but honestly it got away from me, talk of religion and faith, this was supposed to be short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9203516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonitaBreezy/pseuds/BonitaBreezy
Summary: Baze hasn't always been able to place his faith in the Force, but he's always believed in Chirrut.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the only Rogue One fic I'm ever gonna write? But I got an idea and I couldn't let it go and I wrote the whole thing in one day. And then edited it myself. So if it's terrible, that's why. But I hope it's not, because I actually kind of like it.

The Force, Baze’s mother always said, flowed through everyone and everything.  It protected them and provided for them.  

That was the truth that Baze was raised on from the time he was just barely old enough to understand the idea.  The Force was an ever-present concept in his life, from the way his mother said her prayers in the morning to the way she would nod at merchants in the marketplace and wish that the Force be with them.  He would toddle after her, just barely higher than her knee, to the temple once a day so that she could pray.  She always looked so at peace there, eyes closed and face raised to the ceiling, and he always associated that place with safety.

The temple was where he met Chirrut, a boy with mischievous eyes and a wicked smile who always spoke like he knew everything and was just waiting for everyone else to catch up.  They often snuck off together and ended up in trouble whenever their mothers took their eyes off them.  They were indulgent, though, allowing the two boys to strike up a friendship to entertain each other during the long hours at the temple. 

In those days, it never even occurred to him to think that the Force might not exist, even if he couldn’t feel it the way others could.  He didn’t have to feel it like Chirrut did to know that it was there, because the proof was in his mother’s face and the operation of the temple and in each of the pilgrims that traveled to the Holy City just to set eyes on the temple.  Baze Malbus believed, wholeheartedly, in the Force.

Until he didn’t.

**1.**

“Shhh,” Chirrut whispered between giggles, pulling Baze back around the corner. “Did you see it?”

“I saw it,” Baze confirmed, rolling his eyes and nudging Chirrut in the side until he wiggled away to give him more room. “What of it?”

“Just past that door is the largest Kyber crystal in the temple,” Chirrut informed him, his brown eyes sparkling with the mischievous sort of wonder Baze had come to expect from him.  For a boy so devoted to the Force and becoming a guardian, he sought out trouble like a bad habit.  Unfortunately, he somehow always managed to convince Baze to come along with him, even when he knew it was a bad idea.

“We’ve seen plenty of Kyber crystals,” Baze pointed out, though he already knew it was futile. “Our mothers pray by them every day…”

“But this one is the largest,” Chirrut insisted. “And only the Guardians are allowed back there.  I want to see it, Baze.”

“Chirrut…” Baze sighed, but he already knew that Chirrut was going to go, and that he would follow. “You’ll be ten in only a few weeks’ time and old enough to join the temple as a guardian in training…”

“But that’s a few week’s time,” Chirrut pointed out. “And I’ve always found that there’s no time like the present.”

With that, Chirrut poked his head around the corner again and looked both ways down the hall before scurrying out of their hiding place and towards the large stone door, carved with intricate designs that Baze was fairly sure was meant to represent the Force.

“Chirrut!” he hissed. “Come back!”

Chirrut, of course, did not listen and only pushed on just as he always did.  The door, much to Baze’s consternation, slid open easily and silently when Chirrut leaned his weight on it, and Chirrut didn’t even look back to see if Baze was following before he slipped inside.  Baze watched the door swing shut just as silently as it had opened, and then looked longingly back down the hall towards the entrance hall where their mothers were praying before uttering a curse under his breath and giving chase.

He went through the door and found himself walking almost directly into Chirrut’s back.  He’d stopped only a few steps into the room and he was staring up in awe at what was certainly the biggest kyber crystal he’d ever laid eyes on.  It sprang directly out of the floor and stretched up towards the high ceiling, as if the room had been built around it, and perhaps it had. It had to be nearly thirty feet tall and ten feet in diameter.

“It’s incredible,” Chirrut breathed, taking a halting step towards the crystal. “Can you feel it, Baze?”

“You know I can’t,” Baze grumbled, because it was a sore spot for him.  

He’d never been particularly Force sensitive, and he could never have dreamed to be as sensitive as Chirrut was.  It bothered him, on some level, though his mother always assured him that it took more faith to believe in something that he couldn’t see or feel.

“Let’s touch it,” Chirrut said, and Baze didn’t even bother protesting, because he knew that Chirrut always got his way.  They crept towards the crystal together in a reverent sort of silence, Baze keeping an eye out for any Guardians that might be passing by.  They appeared to be lucky, though, because there was no sign of anyone else around.

Baze wasn’t sure what he expected when they pressed their palms to the crystal’s surface, but he was disappointed that it felt just the same as every other kyber crystal he’d ever laid hands on.  It was larger, certainly, but the surface still felt cool and smooth under his fingers and not like much else.  Chirrut, however, seemed to be having a religious experience as he stood there with his eyes closed, both hands pressed flat against the crystal.

“I am one with the Force,” he said. “The Force is with me.”

They were words Baze had heard a thousand times before, but he’d never heard them said with so much conviction and feeling.  He felt strangely bereft at the difference between his experience with the Force and Chirrut’s but he responded in kind anyway,

“The Force is with me.  I am one with the Force.”

Even though he couldn’t feel it the way Chirrut could, something did rise up in his stomach then.  A content sort of fuzzy feeling, like he was a part of something larger than himself, larger than Chirrut, even larger than the massive crystal they were praying before.  It wasn’t Force sensitivity, he knew, but it was something.

“Come on,” Chirrut said suddenly, his voice jarring Baze out of his thoughts making the feeling in his belly dissipate. “Someone’s coming!”

He grabbed Baze’s hand and dragged him from the room, pushing through the doorway that led back to the Guardian’s quarters just as they door they’d come through started to push open behind them.  Chirrut shot him an impish grin as they hurried down the corridor, trying to keep their footsteps quiet on the flagstones and failing miserably.

“Turn, turn!” Chirrut hissed, pushing Baze towards a nearby doorway.  Baze obeyed, because Chirrut always tended to have an uncanny knowledge about these things.  They ducked inside the room just as a few Guardians crossed the hall ahead of them.

Baze’s heart was pounding with the excitement of having almost gotten caught and escaped, so much so that he turned to Chirrut to grin widely and didn’t immediately notice that there was someone else in the room until it was too late.

Not that the Guardian, in his current condition, could do much to betray their position.  He was bedridden and didn’t even seem to notice that two boys had entered his room.  Instead, he just gazed up at the ceiling and moaned lowly.  He was shivering fiercely, even though he was covered in thick blankets, and his skin was covered in sickly-looking purple splotches.

“What’s wrong with him? Chirrut asked, taking a couple steps closer to the bed.

“Don’t go near him!” Baze admonished, grabbing his friend’s arm and pulling him back. “Can’t you see he’s sick?  What if it’s catching?”

“What are you doing in here?”

They both jumped and turned to look up at the Guardian that had appeared behind them guiltily.

“We were only…” Chirrut started to say, but the Guardian didn’t give him a chance to try and come up with an excuse.  It was probably for the best, since Baze wasn’t sure they could come up with a good enough explanation for being in a forbidden part of the temple without digging themselves into a deeper hole.  Staying quiet was probably the wiser course of action.

The guardian grabbed them each by the scruff and forcibly marched them all the way back to their mothers in the entrance hall.  They didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye before they were both being led home with admonishing words from their mothers.

* * *

 

As it turned out, Baze had been right to worry about the sickness being catching, but keeping their distance had done them no good.  Baze awoke the next morning wracked with shivers, so cold that he thought his blood must have been made of ice, even as he sweated straight through his nightclothes.  His arms were covered in the same purple splotches that he’d seen on the Guardian in the temple, and he’d barely had the energy to call for his mother.  She’d looked distressed when she’d seen him, but he’d barely registered the feeling of her fingers running through his sweat-soaked hair before he was swept away in hallucinations of the walls melting and the ceiling swirling with stars.

By the time the fever passed and he came back to himself, his mother was sick as well, and she wasn’t faring nearly as well as he had.  While his purple spots were fading away to nothing, her were vibrant like bruises, and so plentiful he could hardly see any of her natural skin color underneath them.  She wouldn’t take any food and he practically had to drown her to get her to swallow some water every few hours.  Every time he checked on her she’d start screaming, trying desperately to hold him together because she insisted that he was drifting apart.

“Mama, it’s okay,” he said, on the third day after he’d found himself recovered. “Drink some water, you’ll feel better.”

She cried softly, staring at him with wide, confused eyes, and he felt almost guilty as he lifted her head and poured water into her mouth.  Most of it streamed down the sides of her face, and what little she did get she choked on as it passed to her throat, but with some gentle words and strategic lifting he managed to get her to swallow a bit.

Even with that small victory, he could tell that she was fading quickly.  She’d already been sick days longer than he had, and she was so dehydrated that her lips were cracked and raw looking.  He knew he had to get some help, but he was afraid to leave her alone.  So instead he stayed with her, trying to force water and food on her every few hours and praying quietly as he stroked her long hair out of her face.

“I am one with the Force, the Force is with me,” he murmured over and over again, praying for her fever to break, for someone to come check on them and help him, anything.   But her fever didn’t break, and no one came.

After a week, she went mostly quiet.  Occasionally, she would respond to his prayers with her own whispered, “The Force is with me, I am one with the Force,” but he was fairly sure it wasn’t a conscious choice on her part.  Still, she’d calmed down just enough that he’d decided it would be safe to leave her for a while to go fetch help.

“I’ll be back, Mama,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her brow. “Don’t you worry.”

By the time he returned with a doctor in tow, she was already gone.

He knew that he should stay and make arrangements.  He should figure out what to do with his mother’s body, at the very least.  His father had left Jedha long before he was born, and he was the only one left to make any decisions, but he was eleven years old and his mother was dead, and the only thing he could think to do was run to Chirrut.  Chirrut always knew what to do.

When he got to Chirrut’s home, however, he found his friend tending to his parents, both covered in the same awful purple splotches.  Somehow, in all the days he’d been caring for his mother, it hadn’t occurred to him that perhaps Chirrut had also been sick.

“Baze!” he exclaimed, throwing himself at Baze in a fierce hug when he came through the door. “Where have you been?  My parents haven’t been well…”

“I was ill,” Baze explained, nodding towards Chirrut’s parents. “My mother’s dead.”

The words fell numbly from his lips, and they almost seemed to have no meaning to him, except for the way way Chirrut’s brow crinkled and his brown eyes filled with sorrow.

“Baze,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I prayed,” Baze said quietly. “I prayed for days for her health.  The Force didn’t help.”

“All is as the Force wills it,” Chirrut reminded him gently, but Baze didn’t find the words very comforting.  He wasn’t sure what use he had for the Force, if it willed his mother to die. 

He let Chirrut lead him to sit in the corner, tucking his head into his friend’s neck and sobbing, suddenly overcome by the grief of loss and the exhaustion from the last few days.  Chirrut held him quietly, pressing their heads together, and he prayed quietly.  Baze, for the first time, didn’t respond, but Chirrut didn’t seem to mind.

He didn’t seem to mind Baze’s unresponsiveness even two days later when his own parents died, mere hours apart from each other.  They cried together for a while, and then Chirrut wiped both their tears with shaky fingers and took Baze’s hand.

Baze said nothing as they walked hand in hand to the temple.  He didn’t try to help as Chirrut explained to the Guardians what had happened and asked to be allowed to start training early, under the circumstances.  He didn’t even say anything when they were given a small, spartan room with two thin cots to share in the Guardian’s quarters of the temple, just as they’d dreamed about for years.

But that first night, lying together in the dark, Chirrut turned over on his cot and reached his hand across the gap between their beds, and Baze took it.

“I’m sad,” Chirrut said quietly. “I miss my parents.  I miss your mother.  I know that all is as the Force wills it, but I wish it wasn’t.  I know you feel betrayed, Baze.  I know you’re questioning everything.  But the Force isn’t a benevolent entity making sure nothing ever goes wrong in our lives.  It’s motivations are beyond our understanding, and they might hurt us, but ultimately it makes us stronger.”

“I don’t feel very strong,” Baze whispered, because it was dark and it was safe to whisper those things into the darkness, where no one but Chirrut would ever hear them.

“I know,” Chirrut said. “I don’t either.  But at least we still have each other, right?  And we’ll always have the Force.”

“We’ll always have each other,” Baze said firmly, because even if his feelings about the Force were a bit shaky at the moment, he knew he could always be sure of Chirrut.

“I am one with the Force,” Chirrut said, squeezing Baze’s fingers. “The Force is with me.”

“The Force is with me,” Baze whispered back, holding on for dear life. “I am one with the Force.”

**2.**

Baze turned quickly, swinging his staff around at Chirrut’s chest, but before he made contact he suddenly found his feet being pulled harshly out from underneath him.  He landed flat on his back in the dirt, heaving out a wheezing breath, for the fifth time in as many fights.

“The bo staff is just not your weapon,” Chirrut said, grinning smugly down at Baze.

“I hate you,” Baze grumbled, even as his stomach flopped at the sight of Chirrut’s smile.  

It was a newer inclination of his, feeling like the whole world tilted on it’s axis when Chirrut smiled at him, and he was trying to deal with it, but it wasn’t going particularly well.  He tried to tell himself it was an unfortunate side effect of being seventeen and emotionally dependent on one person his entire life long, but he couldn’t deny that Chirrut had grown to be a very attractive man and that Baze was noticing it more and more.

“Don’t be so sore,” Chirrut chided, his eyes crinkling cheerfully in a way that made Baze want to kiss him. “Believe it or not, you’re getting better.”

“Let’s do some hand-to-hand and see who comes out on top then,” Baze grumbled, but he still took Chirrut’s hand when he offered it and let his friend pull him to his feet. “Not all of us need a stick to be an effective fighter.”

Chirrut’s laughter boomed through the courtyard, and Baze found himself smiling at the sound in spite of himself.  Chirrut clapped a hand on his shoulder heavily and gave him a playful shake before pushing him back a few steps.

“No, just big, bulky blasters,” he said.

“They might not be elegant, but they’re certainly effective,” Baze insisted.

“Not all of us see the need to blast holes in everything to be effective,” Chirrut teased.

“As if you aren’t counting down the days until you begin building your lightbow,” Baze retorted.

He scooped his bo staff up off the ground and, with a bit of reluctance, took on a fighting stance.

“Again?” he asked.

“Again,” Chirrut agreed. “I’ll even close my eyes this time.”

“Why, so it can be even more humiliating when you beat me? Spare me,” Baze snorted, and then he made his first move, because he knew he would wait forever for Chirrut to start the round.  He went head on, aiming straight for a high blow, but Chirrut, of course, raised his staff right up and blocked the hit, and then next and the next.

Baze had the advantage of size and strength over Chirrut.  He was taller and bigger and stronger, but Chirrut wasn’t exactly small or weak himself, and his much slimmer body afforded him the advantage of speed.  It seemed like no matter how Baze swung his staff, Chirrut was able to block it or duck out of it’s way, even if it was by bare inches.  He danced around Baze, light footed and quick, almost like it was a game, and occasionally he’d throw in an offensive strike, rapping his staff against Baze’s side or chest, or one time, his knuckles.

“You’re toying with me,” Baze grumbled after a few minutes, well aware that normally he’d be flat on his ass already.

“Am I?” Chirrut asked, grinning. “I would never do such a thing.”

“You would,” Baze insisted, swinging his staff at Chirrut’s head with all his might. “Tormenting people is your favorite passtime.” 

Chirrut laughed brightly at the loud splintering noise their staffs made as they crashed together.  He hardly seemed to exert any pressure, but just like that, Baze’s staff was slipping against Chirrut’s, and then suddenly it was pinned to the ground.

“You’re losing control,” he taunted, his eyes crinkling at the corners.  He raised his staff up, quick as a snake, to strike a “killing” blow, but Baze had just enough energy left in him to duck under it and swing his staff around in a wide arc.

Chirrut laughed and practically threw himself backwards, his body bowing gracefully at the waist to avoid the strike, but Baze came at him once more, staff swinging.  He totally expected Chirrut to manage another miraculous turn or arc of his body to avoid the strike.  Instead, inexplicably, Chirrut paused, his head whipping to the side like he saw something beside him, and Baze’s blow landed hard, directly against the left side of his rib cage.

Chirrut went down like a sack of flour, and he immediately curled in on himself, one hand cradling his ribs and the other his head.  Baze dropped his staff and scrambled over to his side, his hands hovering uncertainly in the air over him.  He never would have swung that hard in a sparring match, if he’d known that Chirrut wouldn’t block it.

“Chirrut!” he said. “Are you okay?”

“My head,” Chirrut said through gritted teeth.  His eyes were squeezed shut tightly and Chirrut could see his fingers shaking through the pain.

“Your head?” Baze asked, confused. “Not your ribs?”

“Both,” Chirrut gasped. “But my head…”

“Come on,” Baze said quickly, deciding that he was done crouching in the dirt and worrying.  The temple doctor was the best in Jedha.  He would know what to do.  Baze got his arms under his friend’s body and hefted him up quickly, not letting himself think about how much energy he’d just expended in their sparring and the way he hadn’t had a chance to rest.  He didn’t let his muscles shake with exhaustion, too focused on getting Chirrut some help.

“Sweeping me off my feet,” Chirrut muttered, giggling even through his obvious pain, and Baze just made an irritated scoffing noise because he didn’t know what else to do.  He had to be okay if he could joke, right?

Somehow, Baze managed to carry his friend all the way up to the medical ward, but he barely finished spitting out a mangled explanation before he was all but pushed from the room while the doctor inspected him.  He waited outside for three hours before the doctor emerged, but he argue as he might, he wasn’t allowed to go inside to check on him.

“He needs to rest, Guardian Malbus,” the doctor said, not unkindly.  It still made Baze’s blood boil, to think about Chirrut alone and hurting.

“What’s wrong with him?” Baze demanded. “I only hit his ribs…”

“They’re not broken, only bruised,” the doctor assured him. “And his head is another matter entirely.”

“And what matter is that?” Baze demanded impatiently.  He had no time for vague words when Chirrut was hurt and maybe worse.

“Chirrut has sustained a disease of the eye,” the doctor explained. “It’s one he’s had for a long time, possibly since birth, but it takes many years for symptoms to show.  However, once they do start to show, degeneration is, unfortunately, quick and efficient.

“What does that mean?” Baze demanded. “Is he going to die?”

He could barely ask the question, he was so terrified of the answer.  Chirrut was his entire world, his whole life.  As much as he loved him, Baze didn’t know how he could possibly continue to function if he were to die.

“It’s unlikely,” the doctor said, and Baze was so overwhelmed with relief that his breath caught in his chest for a moment. “However, the chances are good that he’ll be blind by the end of the month.”

“Blind?” Baze demanded numbly. “Completely blind?”

“Almost inevitably,” the doctor said.

“Does he know?”

“He does,” the doctor said. “He’s asked to be alone, for now.”

It was a gentle dismissal, but a dismissal nonetheless.  The last thing Baze wanted to do was leave Chirrut alone, but he knew it wouldn’t do either of them any good to force his way into the room.  And, he supposed, if Chirrut wanted to be alone for a while to process, he deserved that opportunity.  But first thing in the morning, Baze would be back, no doubt.

* * *

 

The next morning, Chirrut still refused to see anyone, and the morning after that.  On the third day, Baze was in the midst of threatening to take the door off its hinges when it opened up to admit him.  Chirrut didn’t look any different than usual, and he seemed a lot calmer than Baze would have been in his position.

“Are you okay?” he demanded immediately, sweeping his eyes over his friend’s frame, as if he might be able to find some damage that he could care for, even though he knew the real damage was beyond anyone’s help.

“All is as the Force wills it,” Chirrut said, taking a seat on one of the cots.

“That’s bullshit!” Baze snapped angrily. “What good could come from this?”

“The Force doesn’t act in goodness,” Chirrut reminded him gently. “It acts in balance.”

“And what balance does this bring you?” Baze demanded. “How are you meant to be a Guardian if you can’t even see?”

“The Force will guide me,” Chirrut said, and he sounded so sure that Baze couldn’t even fathom it.  He believed in the Force, of course.  He believed that it acted in it’s own interests and had it’s own reasons.  But he didn’t think he could ever be so pious and accepting of everything as Chirrut was.  

“Aren’t you afraid?” Baze asked finally, hating the way that his voice cracked.

Chirrut paused for a moment, staring at Baze, and then he shrugged.

“I’ve known something was wrong for a while,” he admitted. “I keep seeing rainbow-colored auras around lights and occasionally my vision blurs.  When you hit me the other day, it was because for a moment I couldn’t see anything and it distracted me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Baze asked.

“I didn’t see what good it would do to worry you,” Chirrut admitted. “I hoped it would pass.”

“And now that you know it won’t?” Baze asked. 

“I will continue on as I always have,” Chirrut said, shrugging gallantly. “Serving the Force to the best of my ability.  I have faith that things will work out the way they are supposed to.”

“How?” Baze asked, a little desperately, kneeling on the ground at Chirrut’s feet so that he could look into his face. “How do you have that sort of faith?”

Baze had always had faith in the Force, but sometimes he found it hard to not feel hurt and betrayed by It.  Chirrut never seemed to have that problem.

“I just do,” Chirrut said. “I can feel It moving around me and within me.  In you.  We are not Jedi, Baze.  The Force is not ours to use, but we belong to It, you understand?”

“You would think the Force would better protect and take care of the things that belong to It, wouldn’t you?” Baze muttered mutinously, aware that it was blasphemous even as he said it.

“Well, It does, doesn’t It?  After all, It sent me you.”

Baze ran out of words then, and it was all he could do to stare at his friend’s serene face, slightly open mouthed.  Chirrut grinned at that and he reached out to take Baze’s face in his hands.

“I know I’ll always be okay as long as I have the Force to guide my feet and you to watch my back, Baze Malbus.”

“Of course,” Baze said quickly. “I will always be your eyes, I promise.”

“So, there,” Chirrut said, and this time his smile was a bit less wicked and a little more sweet. “I have nothing to worry about.  I will never be weak or helpless Baze, whether I have sight or not.”

The mere idea of Chirrut being anything but capable and slightly mocking was almost enough to make Baze snort, and that instinctive reaction made him feel better.  Of course Chirrut would be okay.  Of all the terrible things that could happen to a person, losing their sight was probably one of the lesser evils.  It wasn’t the choice option, but Baze would take it over death or dismemberment any day.

“I could never imagine you being weak or helpless,” he admitted. “And I suppose I’ll just have to resign myself to never being able to beat a blind man with the bo staff.”

Chirrut laughed, loud and happy, and Baze was so flooded with relief at the sound that he leaned up and pressed their mouths together.  It was a soft and uncertain kiss, and Chirrut made a surprised noise before he pulled back just far enough to study Baze’s face with narrowed eyes.

“Is this pity?” he asked, as if Baze could ever pity him.

“This is love,” Baze told him, because the one person he could never be dishonest with was Chirrut.

“Well,” Chirrut said, leaning back in to kiss him again. “That’s all right, then.”

**3.**

The night the Jedi were exterminated, Chirrut woke up screaming.  Baze hadn’t been able to feel the disturbance in the Force, so he hadn’t had any idea what might be happening.  He’d only known that something was wrong with Chirrut and he’d done everything he could to find out what it was, until he was begging him for answers.  It was hours before he stopped screaming, but tears continued to stream from his eyes, which had gone milky blue from the cataracts years before.

“They’re dead,” he’d finally whispered hoarsely, his voice barely there from hours of abuse.

“Who is dead?” Baze had demanded, looking around for his blaster in case someone decided to come bursting through their door, even though he knew logically that if trouble was in the temple it would have found them already.

“The Jedi,” Chirrut had told him, and then he’d promptly fallen unconscious.  

Baze had been reluctant to believe him at first, since the idea of anything being powerful enough to destroy all of the Jedi in one fell swoop was horrifying.  But Chirrut had an annoying tendency to be right about everything, so when all of the Guardians were gathered in the courtyard of the temple later that day and told that the Jedi had been branded traitors, he hadn’t been particularly surprised.

He also hadn’t been surprised when Chirrut insisted that they remain at the temple and continue with their duties.  He had stayed, because there was nothing in the universe that could ever compel him to leave Chirrut’s side, but his faith had taken a serious hit.  He could force himself to believe after the loss of his mother.  People had to die; it was the way of the world.  He could force himself to believe after Chirrut lost his eyesight, mostly because Chirrut had never let it change him.  He was still the same man Baze had loved all his life, and besides a few frustrations when he was learning how to live his new life, he hadn’t let his blindness get the better of him.  In some ways, he’d even learned how to use it to his advantage, and it was so much a part of him and their lives that Baze hardly even spared it a thought anymore.

What he couldn’t make himself understand was how, if something like the Force existed, it could allow for something like the genocide of the Jedi to happen.  He’d spent hours holding Chirrut in his arms as he’d thrashed and screamed at their deaths, as he’d sobbed at the deaths of the younglings.  Baze had always been so jealous of his ability to feel the Force, but that night he had been grateful that he couldn’t.  But even after all of the amazing things he’d seen Chirrut do, and all the things he always seemed to know about everyone, he found that not only did he doubt believe that the Force cared or even existed, but he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.  If there was some larger power in the universe and it stood back and let terrible atrocities happen, Baze wasn’t sure he wanted to be a part of it.

They managed to stay in the temple for four more years, going about their regular duties and living as well as they could with the threat of the Empire looming over them.  They kept mostly to themselves, keeping their heads down but being watchful as ever.  Baze accompanied Chirrut out to the streets, but he only kept a silent vigil as Chirrut preached the word of the Force.

Then, one day, perhaps inevitably, teams started coming in to excavate the kyber.  They fought, of course, as that had always been their duty, but even with a temple full of guardians they were no match for the might of the Empire.  

They had held the temple for two weeks, but now, with more than half the Guardians dead, the remaining few were being given a choice.  They could lay down their weapons and leave the temple peacefully, or they could die.  Baze knew which choice he was leaning towards.

“We must go, Chirrut,” Baze said.  He wasn’t begging, but he thought he might if Chirrut made him.  They had been given an hour to choose, but Baze wanted to be far away from the temple before that hour was up.

“How can we go, Baze?” Chirrut responded. “We pledged our lives to the Force…”

“The Force isn’t real!” Baze snapped angrily. “It’s...Chirrut, you and I, we are real.  And we can live, or we can die for an uncaring, nonexistent ideal!”

Chirrut was silent for a long moment, and  Baze wondered if he’d just destroyed their entire relationship by finally saying the doubts he’d been wrestling with for years out loud.  Finally, he turned to look Baze in the face, as directly as he could without actually being able to see him.  He didn’t look horrified or condemning, but rather like he was resigned.  Like he’d known just as long as Baze had that maybe he was losing his faith.

“Of course the Force is real,” Chirrut admonished him gently.

“It’s not,” Baze insisted stubbornly. “It can’t be, not if all these terrible things have been allowed to happen.”

“And we are meant to allow one more terrible thing to happen?” Chirrut asked him. “If we leave the temple, we leave the kyber unprotected…”

“There is nothing we can do, Chirrut,” Baze insisted. “We lost.  Either we leave this temple on our own feet or our bodies will be dragged out of it.  There is nothing more we can do but live to fight another day.”

Chirrut closed his eyes and took in a long, deep breath.  When he opened them again, Baze could already see that his decisions had been made, even if neither of them particularly liked it.  When he spoke, it wasn’t about the guidance of the Force or a prayer like Baze had expected.  Instead he said, sadly, 

“This has been our home for thirty years.”

There was nothing noteworthy that Baze could think to say to that, so instead he grabbed his love up into a rough hug and held him close.  They’d been through so much together in the temple.  They’d learned how to fight and how to survive.  In that tiny room alone they had spent countless hours talking, laughing, falling in love.  Leaving it behind was almost unthinkable, but that was their only option.

“We’ll have to be each other’s homes, then,” Chirrut said after they spent a few long minutes holding each other. “All is as the Force wills it.”

Baze chose not to reply to that, his piece about the Force or lack thereof said for now.  Instead, he began collecting odds and ends that they’d collected over the years.  They’d lived a mostly spartan existence in the temple, but a few extra sets of clothes and the rehydration packs they’d hoarded when they’d locked down the temple wouldn’t go remiss if they were to be living on the streets.

After he’d filled a bag with as much as could manage, he looked to Chirrut who was sitting cross-legged on their bed with his lightbow in his lap.  He was running his hands over it, checking all the mechanisms and making sure it was running properly.  It was something he did often, but now the familiar motions were tinged with sadness.  There was no way the stormtroopers were going to let them keep it, even though Chirrut had built it with his own hands.  They all had; it was the final mark of becoming a Guardian of the Whills.

They were losing everything but each other, and Baze couldn’t bear to make Chirrut give anything else up.  An idea brewing quickly in his brain, he stripped off the red antaravasaka from under his robes that marked him as a Guardian and began tearing it into strips.

“Baze?” Chirrut questioned, turning towards the sound with a confused frown.

“Collapse your bow,” Baze instructed. “And stand up.”

“What are you doing?” Chirrut asked, but he did as Baze told him to.  Baze turned him around forcibly and untied his sanghati from where it hung at his back, ready to be pulled around and used for extra warmth on cold nights.

“Baze, I really don’t think now is the time to be undressing me…”

“Chirrut, shut your mouth for five minutes,” Baze grumbled.  

Chirrut, to his credit, actually did so, allowing Baze to move him around at his own leisure.  Baze took advantage of his uncharacteristic cooperation and started tying the collapsed lightbow to Chirrut’s baldric with the red strips of fabric he’d created.  It wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done; the bow was still large and bulky even collapsed, but when he finally got it tied tight enough that it stayed in place when he let go of it, he swung Chirrut’s sanghati over his shoulders and tied it securely in place.

“Take a few steps away,” he instructed, and Chirrut, who had figured out what Baze was doing a few minutes before started walking. “Strand a little straighter.”

Chirrut did as he was told, and the change of angle was just enough to hide the bulk of the weapon underneath his sanghati.  It wasn’t a perfect solution, and if anyone decided to pat them down before they left it certainly wouldn’t pass inspection, but Baze was banking on the fact that the stormtroopers would see a blind monk and overlook him as dangerous.  Chirrut had taken out a significant amount of their men in the past two weeks, but those who fought him didn’t generally make it out alive, and they almost never saw him coming.

“It’ll do,” he said. “If they see it and try to take it, let them.  There are too many of them for us to fight, and I can’t lose you on top of everything else.”

“I can build a new one, if necessary,” Chirrut conceded, which was promise enough for Baze. 

As an afterthought, he grabbed his own lightbow and quickly dismantled it, taking out the power core and tucking it into the bag he’d packed, hidden amongst the extra sets of robes.  He knew they couldn’t both sneak out their bows--Baze had always been more comfortable with a blaster anyway--but he’d be damned if he’d let the Empire get their hands on his weapon as long as it still worked.  Besides, it would be useful whether or not they managed to smuggle out Chirrut’s bow.

“Are you ready?” Baze asked.

“No,” Chirrut said, and then he added, “I am one with the Force.  The Force is with me.”

For the first time in thirty years, Baze didn’t respond, and the silence loomed tangibly between them.  He cleared his throat and offered a rough, “Let’s go,” before handing Chirrut his staff.  He pressed a kiss to Chirrut’s forehead, almost like a silent apology, and they made their way down to the entrance hall.  They left behind their purpose, their home, and Baze’s faith in the Force.  But they kept Chirrut’s lightbow and each other, and that had to be good enough.

**4.**

They lived outside of the temple, in what was basically a shack that Baze located and commandeered for them, for a year before Baze found himself falling into work as an assassin.  

He’d worked hard to strip all the evidence of his connection with the Guardians from his body, starting with his robes, which he traded for a flight suit he stole from an Imperial supply ship, along with a few choice weapons he’d appropriated. He’d stopped keeping his hair cropped short and he found that it grew rather quickly and wildly when left to it’s own devices.  Still, it was so far from what he’d worn as a Guardian that he quickly grew attached to it.  The only concession he made to its wild ways was tie it up on either side with leather thongs so that it didn’t fall into his eyes.  He’d even grown a goatee, which had made Chirrut laugh uproariously for weeks and claim it made him feel like he was kissing a wookiee.

Becoming an assassin in order to make enough money to keep himself and Chirrut in lodgings and food had seemed like the next logical step in shedding his old identity.  He already had all the skills and the know-how from his Guardian training.  Being as assassin was just a matter of stripping away some of the ethics that had been drilled into his for thirty years.  But, considering that they lived in what was basically an Imperial-occupied war zone, Baze hadn’t found it particularly difficult to step over the line of his morality.  Jedha was a powder keg waiting to explode, and Baze had every intention of making sure that he and Chirrut survived when it did.  

By the time he was 45 years old, six years after they’d been turned out of the temple, Baze was practically a one man army, armed to the teeth with a repeating cannon he’d cobbled together out of several laser guns and a lot of good luck.  It was big and bulky, requiring him to wear the power pack on his back, but it certainly did the job and just wearing it kept most people with ill-intentions at a distance.  He and Chirrut were perfectly capable of protecting themselves and each other if it came to a fight, but Baze would rather avoid it altogether if he could manage it.  Not that Chirrut made that easy, with the way he still preached of the Force and made as much trouble for the stormtroopers as he possibly could.  He was obnoxious and inflammatory and Baze loved him to the end of the universe, but that didn’t mean he didn’t sometimes want to wring his damn neck.

“Can’t you go one day without getting into trouble?” he demanded as he ducked through the low doorway of the little home they’d made for themselves.

“So you heard,” Chirrut said, his grin far too smug where he stood in front of the little portable range they’d salvaged waiting for the kettle to boil.  “Would you like some tea?”

“I would like to go one day without hearing about the blind Guardian nearly inciting a riot somewhere,” Baze grumbled, watching as Chirrut turned to the little shelf to the side of the range and ran his fingers across the boxes there until they settled on the little tin of tea leaves.

“The blind Guardian, is that what they call me?” Chirrut asked, wrinkling his nose. “I mean, it’s accurate, I suppose…”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Baze said seriously. “I can’t always be there to watch out for you…”

“I’m your husband, not your child,” Chirrut reminded him, his tone sharp.

Baze backed off, raising his hands in surrender even though Chirrut couldn’t see him do it.

“You’re right,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.  You know I worry.  The city isn’t safe, and I’d just as soon leave Jedha entirely…”

“You may have given up your vows,” Chirrut said, with no judgment in his voice, “But I still owe my loyalties to the Holy City.  I failed the temple, but I refuse to fail the people.”

It wasn’t the first time they’d had this same argument, and Baze was sure it wouldn’t be the last.  Chirrut didn’t often condemn him for his loss of faith, but he never gave up on his own.  He watched as Chirrut tapped some tea leaves into the infuser and settled it into the pot before adding the water.

“I understand why you do it,” Baze said, trying to to sound as long-suffering as he felt.  “But  _ please _ be more careful.  If you keep drawing so much attention to yourself, they will put you down, and then I’ll have to go out in a blaze of glory and take as many stormtroopers as I can with me, and it honestly just sounds like a lot of effort.  I’d rather we both just come home unscathed at the end of the day.”

“I’m as careful as the situation permits,” Chirrut allowed, which was what he always said and meant exactly nothing. “Would you like some tea?”

“Please,” Baze said, beginning to take off his armor.  It was stuff he’d appropriated from stormtroopers and modified, so it was effective but it didn’t breathe particularly well.  He had to go back out and do a job later, so he didn’t dress down all the way, but he certainly had enough time to sit and relax for a while.

“My hair is getting too long,” Chirrut pointed out, and he was right.  It was starting to get downright shaggy.

“It’s also getting gray,” Baze pointed out, reaching out and running his fingers along the side of Chirrut’s head, just above his ear where silver hairs were starting to make their appearance among the black.

“Well, if mine is, I’m sure yours started up long ago,” Chirrut retorted, and though Baze would never admit it to him, he was absolutely right.  

His hair had started going gray a few years before, and while it was still mostly black, it certainly wasn’t a sparse amount like what Chirrut was sporting.  He imagined in another year or so his goatee would be almost entirely gray.  Apparently his silence spoke volumes enough, because Chirrut snorted loudly and handed him a tea cup.

“I’m sure you look very dashing and not at all like a crazed old wookiee.”

“I thought the goatee had grown on you,” Baze said, definitely not pouting as he rubbed his hand ruefully over his chin.

“Oh, it has,” Chirrut assured him, and he left it at that.

“You infuriate me,” Baze told him, unable to keep the affection out of his voice.

“I’m well aware,” Chirrut said, grinning at him and taking a seat on the floor in front of him, getting down so easily it made Baze’s knees ache with jealousy. “Will you cut my hair before you go back out tonight?”

“Maybe I’ll shave your whole head,” Baze threatened. “Would serve you right.”

Chirrut only shrugged, completely unbothered. “You’re the one who has to look at me.”

Baze scoffed loudly because he couldn’t think of a good comeback.  The grin on Chirrut’s face said he knew that.

* * *

 

Much later that night, as Baze stood in a dark room with a blaster to an Imperial Officer’s head, he wasn’t thinking about home or Chirrut or the small bit of peace he’d carved out for himself in this hellscape of a universe.  Even when the Officer began babbling and pleading, and then, eventually, praying “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me” over and over again, his resolve didn’t fade.

“The Force isn’t with any of us,” Baze told him in a furious whisper. “It doesn’t exist, and if it did, it wouldn’t care enough about your waste of a life to do a damn thing.”

He pulled the trigger and was out of the room before the body had even finished falling to the floor.

**5.**

Baze stared out at the flashes of blue light that zipped past them, the Universe slipping by in hyper speed.  He was fairly sure that he was in shock, sitting completely silently on the floor in the back of a ship as they sped away from the crater that was the only remains of the only home he’d ever known in his whole life.  Chirrut was seated on a bench a few feet away, staring sightlessly out the window the same way that Baze was.  He hadn’t said a word in the whole twenty minutes since they’d cleared the blast zone and the Rebel captain had started trying to contact his superiors.  It was unusual for him, and Baze was worried.  He wanted to go check on him, to make sure he was unharmed and maybe comfort him at the loss of their home, but he didn’t want to show his hand in front of these strangers.  It wouldn’t do for any of them to think they could use his affection for Chirrut against them.

Chirrut seemed to trust them and their intentions, and that was enough for Baze to play nice, but he wasn’t foolish enough to let down his guard.  The way they’d been drawing stormtroopers back in Jedha spoke of the danger they brought with them.  And, of course, Chirrut had dragged them both right into the fray the moment he got the chance, and all because the girl had a kyber crystal.

“Baze,” Chirrut spoke up suddenly, still staring out the window. “All of it?  The whole city?”

Baze paused, because he knew that Chirrut must know the answer, but he didn’t want to confirm it.  To say it out loud would make it real.  Jedha, their home, was gone.  The places where they’d lived with their parents, the streets they’d run amok in as children, the temple they’d dedicated their lives to, even the tiny little home they’d made for themselves, cobbled together from bits and pieces.

“Tell me,” Chirrut said, and his voice was so stern and serious that Baze couldn’t ignore him.  Saying it aloud would make it real, but maybe that was what Chirrut needed.

“All of it,” he confirmed, looking away from the blue of hyperspace and over at his husband.  Chirrut looked so lost and angry, sitting there in the dark, and Baze could only take it as another sign that he’d been right and the Force, if it existed, didn’t care about them or guide them one bit.  They were on their own, hurtling through space with nowhere to call home, and the only thing he knew for certain that he could trust in was Chirrut.

**+1.**

At a more religious time in his life, Baze might have called the way all the blasts seemed to miss  Chirrut a miracle.  Now, he just called it dumb luck, but with his heart in his throat, watching his husband walk calmly across an open stretch of battlefield while people shot at him, it was all he could do not to pray for his deliverance.

He couldn’t even feel relief when Chirrut successfully flipped the switch and turned to grin back at him.  All he could do was yell, desperate and terrified.

“Chirrut, come!” he called. “Come with me!”

It wasn’t to be, though.  Chirrut had hardly taken a few steps away from the switch when a shot from a laser gun hit the stand and the whole thing exploded.  Baze could only watch in stunned horror as the blast threw Chirrut right off his feet and propelled him through the air.  He hit the ground hard, and didn’t move, and then Baze was running.

He didn’t know how he made it all the way to his husband without getting shot, but suddenly he was sliding to his knees in the dirt and pulling him into his lap.

“Chirrut!” he said, already begging for what he knew was impossible.  The blast had been too big, the distance had been too far.  Even with how stubborn and strong Chirrut was, there was no way he could survive something like that.  He was only human.  Still, Baze begged, his stomach sick with dread and fear and anger. “Don’t go.  Don’t go!   I’m here.”

“It’s okay,” Chirrut said, his voice barely more than a whisper, a infuriatingly calm as he ever was. His eyelids were already drooping closed and Baze could feel the strength leaving his body even as he begged it not to.  Chirrut reached up searchingly, his hand brushing past Baze’s hair, and Baze grabbed it and held on tightly, pressing his lips against the back of his hand.

“Chirrut,” he said beseechingly.

“Look for the Force,” Chirrut said. “And you will always find me.”

Baze wanted to scream and cry and beg, but he knew that it would all be futile.  Chirrut was fading fast and there was only one thing left that he could do for him.

“The Force is with me,” he uttered the response to Chirrut’s prayer for the first time in fourteen years. “I am one with the Force.”

He could see the way Chirrut’s whole body relaxed as he blinked in surprise, so Baze said it again.  He smiled weakly, for barely half a second, and then his head dropped back and he was gone.

“The Force is with me.  I am one with the Force.”

Baze settled Chirrut down on the ground, resting his head gently against the sand.  He followed him down, pressing one last kiss to his forehead, and uttering one more prayer before he sat up and stared blankly over the horizon.

In the distance, Rogue One exploded against the blue sky, and he wondered if Bodhi had managed to connect to the comm tower. He wondered if Chirrut had died for a reason, or for nothing.  Then, he realized, it didn’t matter.  Because either way, Chirrut was dead.  The only person he cared about, his entire world, was lying dead in the sand.

Baze staggered to his feet and continued his prayer.  He could never hope to match all the times he should have responded to Chirrut, but he could make a start at it.  Because Chirrut was dead, but he swore that Baze could find him in the Force.  And it just didn’t make sense that the world continued to spin and life went on with no trace of Chirrut left in it, so that must mean he was still there, in the Force, and that the Force was real after all.

Baze was going to join him, but first he was going to take out as many Imperial bastards as he possibly could.  He cocked his gun and went to work.

He knew, intellectually, that he was being shot and that it should hurt, but he just kept pressing forward, shooting anything that moved, uttering his prayer.   When a primed grenade rolled out of a dead soldier’s hand, Baze felt a rush of relief spread over the numbness that had taken over his limbs.  He turned back to Chirrut, seeking his face out, because even if he wasn’t in there anymore, even if he was in the Force just waiting for Baze to join him, he couldn’t imagine wanting to see anything else as the grenade exploded and fire consumed him.


End file.
